


all my nights taste like gold

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 22:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11860701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: “The Knight Bus is undergoing a lot of uncertainty, and, from what I can tell, Ernie and Stan’s replacements have been shite and --”“And you want us to take over,” because, look at that, they’ve always been a team.





	all my nights taste like gold

**Author's Note:**

> title is from waking up slow by gabrielle aplin

 

As understanding and lenient the new Ministry of Magic may be with regards to the Imperious Curse and other forms of coercion that the Death Eaters used to gain recruits during the war, it’s simply not possible for a known Death Eater, however unwilling he may have been, to return to his day job of Knight Bus conductor. Stan Shunpike is asked to hand in his uniform and his pass and is asked to find a new job as soon as possible.

Ernie Prang, on the other hand, while not a Death Eater, is growing old. His sight has never been great and he’s the best driver of the bus Wizarding Britain has seen in a long time but the war has taken its toll on him and so he leaves too. It’s fitting, everyone says, that the duo that made so many journeys eventful and enjoyable should leave at the same time.

Of course this means that the most popular strand of public transport is missing two of its three most important components it needs in order for it to run -- the third being the customers themselves and they’re always in high supply.

In the meantime, while they search for a more permanent replacement, the Knight Bus customers are treated to a stream of drivers and conductors with wildly varying degrees of success. This isn’t something that can be rushed. None of them fit.

 

.

  


Seamus goes back for his eighth year because that’s what most people are doing and his seventh year was a washout when you count the torturing and the beatings and the general lack of half the subjects. Seamus was never going to have a career in Defence Against the Dark Arts (maybe now he will actually, he has the experience, the skills) or Muggle Studies but he would have liked the option. So he goes back and Dean comes with him and sooner than he expected, things feel suspiciously normal again.

Things are tentative at first because where do you joke about classmates being on the run or attacked by werewolves or Death Eaters or _dead_ for fifteen minutes? Do you skim over things and discuss Flitwick’s latest essay or do you sit around the common room fire and count all the ways your lives have changed?

 

.

  


They find somewhere in the middle.

“Jesus, I haven’t missed your snoring, mate,” Seamus says a couple of mornings after they're back, chucking a book at Ron’s bed.

“Try sharing a tent with him for eight months,” Harry says, getting out of bed and stretching. He’s bare-chested and Seamus can’t help but notice that he has more scars than before including a nasty one above his heart but Seamus has more than a handful of scars of his own now - they all have.

There’s the tiniest fraction of a silence that could be awkward before Dean comes in with, “After hearing Griphook, human snores are a blessing.”

“Like you can talk,” Seamus argues, because that’s what they do. “You’re as bad as Ron.”

“Hey,” Ron grumbles, scratching his head and looking bemusedly at the book in his lap. “You’ve put up with it for six years.”

“This is our last year,” Neville says, an announcement to the room.

“Take two,” Seamus adds.

 

.

 

They walk through the halls, the halls that had failed to protect the smallest students from the horrors outwith the walls. Seamus counts every lucky star he has that he never picked Potions for NEWT level because he can’t go anywhere near the dungeons without his body breaking out in sweats, a gasp wracking through his body, that he doesn’t have to hide because everyone’s going through the same recovery, but he keeps it quiet anyway. These people need someone to be a shred of comic relief.

He and Dean slot back into the pair they were before, coming close to discussing everything that happened to each other in the year they were apart but always turning away again before they say something of any meaning.

It’s fine. It’s been five months and Seamus still hasn’t quite recovered from seeing Dean climb through into the Room of Requirement, wandless and looking oddly healthy in a room full of bruises. He’s still riding the wave of indescribable belief because he’s sat and listened to Potterwatch at every chance he could get, sat straining to hear Dean’s name in the lists of the dead, but it wasn’t until he hugged him, felt Dean’s arms around his waist, that he really believed it.

So it’s fine. Seamus is grabbing every moment with Dean with both hands and if they don’t acknowledge how broken the other felt during those months they were apart than that’s okay because they’re back.

Harry’s always been the one with the world on his shoulders and the manner to match, leave that to him, and Seamus and Dean will be the comedy act from the sidelines.

  


.

 

A year passes. They finish Hogwarts, this time for real, and Dean and Seamus find a flat together, because that was always their plan.

 

.

 

The bus finds its conductor by way of a happy coincidence because sometimes that’s the way magic works.

 

.

 

When the extended mourning period ends and people begin returning to the semblance of normality their lives had before the country was ripped apart, Seamus spends his time bouncing from job to job.

It’s a Sunday night and Seamus is slumped at the bar in The Leaky Cauldron, plying Hannah Abbott with harmless compliments and useless facts, killing time before he goes back to his flat, which will be empty because Dean will still be out on his night patrol, because he still wants to be a part of the darkness that took up the last year of their lives because he feels guilty he was gone because --

“Seamus,” Hannah says, voice gentle as she leans towards him. “Are you okay?”

“‘M doing feck all with my life, aren’t I, Han?” he mumbles into his palm which is propping up his head with the help of a rapidly weakening elbow.

And Hannah hesitates, pulls out that Hufflepuff compassion. “That’s not true.” Seamus snorts. “It’s been a tough few months --”

“We can’t all have it as easy as you,” Seamus agrees, which isn’t as bitter as it sounds because Seamus hadn’t really spoken to Hannah much before this year but you can’t share a small magical room with someone for months and not get past acquaintances.

“Tom took his rightfully earned retirement and I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” which is a good thing because business has never been better for the pub now that the war is over and over half of their clientele can leave their house without fear of being hauled in front of the Ministry.

“And you’re doing a good job,” Seamus says definitively, raising his pint to her.

Hannah laughs, opens her mouth to reply, but the door swings open and a couple of old witches come in, both talking at the top of their voices.

“Can you _believe_ it?” one asks, shaking their head.

“We don’t ask for much, do we, Meryl? A bit of chat, some competent arithmetic --”

“You don’t even need that with the contraption they have strapped around their waist, does it all for them,” the first one interrupts, which fuels the second’s rant.

“Exactly, but here we are, short-changed and shaky on our feet thanks to the driver -- nothing like Ernie, who was _blind_ , mind you.”

“What’s bothering you, ladies?” Hannah asks.

The women glance at each other, roll their eyes in unison. “The Knight Bus just hasn’t recovered after Stan’s arrest and Ernie’s retirement. We understand, of course, you can never be too careful and they were always a double act, no wonder Ernie couldn’t stay on himself, but you would think no one in Britain had a bit of charm or decent driving skills.”

It’s the bit of charm that hooks Seamus. His mam always told him he could chat the legs off a Hippogriff and to watch otherwise he’d struggle finding someone who would put up with him long enough to employ him. And he knows someone who’s been around Muggles long enough to pick up decent driving skills.

“What was that you were saying about being in the right place at the right time, Hannah?”

 

.

  


“You have your driving license, don’t you?” Seamus checks, hand on Dean’s shoulder as he passes him on the way to the kitchen. They never seem to have anything in apart from two apples and a banana that have been having a morbid competition of who can last the longest before either Dean or Seamus notice how furry and disgusting they are. Seamus is holding out for the banana — apples are disgusting even when they’re ripe.

“Why?”

“Answer the question,” Seamus says, head in the fridge.

“Yes, I have my driving license.”

Seamus gives up on the food hunt and slings his arm around Dean’s shoulders, crouching beside him at the table. “Cool, so, do you want to become my partner?”

“In what?

“The Knight Bus is undergoing a lot of uncertainty, and, from what I can tell, Ernie and Stan’s replacements have been shite and --”

“And you want us to take over,” because, look at that, they’ve always been a team.

“That’s right.”

“This sounds like a bad idea.”

“I never have bad ideas.”

Dean raises an eyebrow and doesn’t mention any of the schemes that landed them both in detention more times than they could count. Hey, they didn’t die, and that really is something.

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Seamus cajoles. “And don’t say you have a job because the Night Patrol is voluntary and you hate it, and, honestly, you’ll be doing more good as the driver of the safest mode of transportation in Britain.”

“It never felt the safest when Ernie was driving it,” and Seamus knows Dean is remembering that time he stayed at Seamus’s over the summer before third year and the Welsh woman threw up on him on the way to King’s Cross.

“See? We can revamp it. Make it safer; make it our own. You can design the timetables and price lists and everything,” because Seamus hasn’t learned nothing in the eight years he’s known Dean, he knows this is how to get him fully on board. “Think of all that artistic freedom.”

“And what’s your role? The new Stan?”

“Something like that,” Seamus says, grinning at Dean who tries for half a second not to smile back before beaming, his hand clapping Seamus’s shoulder, a pact for their new job.

 

.

 

Of course, there’s deciding you’re going to be the new conductor and new driver of The Knight Bus and then there’s actually getting the job. Dean points this out as they’re making their way to the Ministry and Seamus pauses, summons all of the charm he thinks he might need, tells Dean to practice his Confundus Charm in the lift, and reminds them both to smile.

But, actually, false alarm. Dean slips his wand back into his pocket and Seamus reels in his slightly manic grin when the harassed looking Mrs Lufkin asks, “Are you here about the Knight Bus? Of course you are, you’re in my office --” Seamus opens his mouth to introduce them but she carries on at full-speed, “Okay, the job’s yours, you’re both a bit young but Merlin knows we need anyone we can get at this rate. Six in a month, can you believe it?”

“No, ma’am,” Dean manages to slide in which earns him a harried nod and them both gestured towards a slip of paperwork.

“I’ve got them sitting ready for whoever walks through the door these days. Do you know Harry Potter? Of course you do, who doesn’t, well he came by for a word about the nasty Stan Shunpike business and I almost had him at the table signing up, of course, it’s not a job for him, not that it isn’t a great job, of course, it’s not for me. I like the office,” she tails off, takes a deep breath, one that Seamus almost feels he needs as well, and then continues, “So, what are your names then? And what age are you really? You are of age, aren’t you? Of course you are otherwise you’d be going back to Hogwarts.”

“Thanks for giving up this opportunity, ma’am,” Seamus says when she pauses. “It’s been a tough year and we thought that this could be just the thing. We hope we manage to stick around longer than the others.”

“It won’t be hard -- the last two only lasted four days. Ernie was there for 45 years and Stan, poor soul, was there for 6. Good luck to you both, of course, but it’s becoming less and less likely we find a replacement like them.”

So Dean and Seamus leave as the ink is drying on their contracts, both of their heads held high and their hearts beat beat beating for them to prove Mrs Lufkin wrong and make a lasting impression.

 

.

 

One of the good things (and there aren’t any bad things really) about living with your best friend is that they’re right _there_ , all the time, which comes in handy when you’re having pre-first day jitters.

“Seamus?” Dean whispers from where he’s leaning against Seamus’s open door. “You awake? Can I come in?”

Seamus makes a sound of agreement, rolls over to make room, and then _oof_ s with surprise when Dean flops onto the bed beside him, his long limbs always taking up more space than Seamus has prepared. He shuffles his body around so that his leg fits between Dean’s, his arm over Dean’s waist, an easy closeness born from weeks spent at each other’s houses every summer and Seamus’s whiny inability to sleep on the floor, demanding Dean make room in his tiny single bed.

“You okay, Dean?” He murmurs, most of the words landing into his pillow but this bed isn’t so big that Dean doesn’t catch them.

“Mm,” is the reply, a small sound that has Seamus lifting his head to peer at Dean.

“That didn’t sound okay,” he says. “What’s up? You nervous?”

“A little. Aren’t you?”

Seamus almost scoffs, a blustery show of confidence if only to make Dean feel better, but instead he says, “A little.”

“That’s why I came through,” Dean says, his hand fitting into the dip of Seamus’s hip. There’s always been a lot of skating over boundaries, of brushing up against them, of coming very close to pushing them before backing away. This isn’t the night for that. Dean’s hand stays there, though, not looking for more, and Seamus barely notices it while noticing almost nothing else. He focuses on watching Dean’s mouth when he says, “I knew you needed company.”

“Aye, that’s why you’re here,” Seamus laughs, “For me.”

Dean is quiet, his breathing steady, and so many minutes pass Seamus assumes he’s fallen asleep and closes his eyes to do the same, hoping the tiny ball of anxiety in his stomach will be less in the morning.

“Have I told you how much I missed you when I was on the run?” Dean says.

Seamus swallows, keeps his eyes on Dean’s chest. “There’ve been other things to talk about since and you must have had a lot more on your mind.”

“I’m a big boy, Shay, I can think of more than two things at once,” Dean huffs a laugh. “But I thought about you a lot. Mostly it was about the normalcy of Hogwarts, as bad as the rumours were about what had happened to the place, of going to lessons and of dinner, and just of _laughing_ with you, cause you’re my best mate.”

“I was convinced you were dead for the first few weeks,” Seamus says quietly. “Once we were back at Hogwarts all the reports became harder to get through, harder to know what was real and what was fake, but all we heard was that Muggleborns everywhere were being rounded up and that those on the run were dead and all I could think of was that I helped persuade you to go,” and that’s a downplaying of everything he’s felt.

Dean acknowledges this with his hand rubbing along Seamus’s side. “Well, I’m not. I’m here.”

And isn’t that the main thing?

Dean leaves the bed a while later with promises of an early start in the morning. Seamus rolls over into the warm stretch left by Dean and looks forward to however it will all turn out.

 

.

 

Seamus never actually used the bus much when he was younger, his mum always prefered to Floo and his dad would take the car whenever it was too far to walk, but there’s still a sense of responsibility, of _absurdity_ , when Dean unlocks the doors and they explore, this time not as the customers but as the people running the show. The Knight Bus has been an important part of Wizarding Britain for a century, and now it’s their turn.

He turns to Dean, wide-eyed and eager, sees the same expression of glee and apprehension looking back.

“You ready?” Dean asks, adjusting the driver’s seat for his long legs.

Seamus tightens the contraption around his waist. “Hey, we’ve faced Death Eaters, Dean, I think we’re going to be fine.”

 

.

 

Business 101: Never underestimate the customer.

 

.

 

“Aren’t you a little _young_ to be working?” is the first thing out of their first customer’s mouth.

“I’m short for my age,” Seamus replies. “So what’ll it be, sir?”

“To Sheffield please.”

“And will you be wanting to pay an extra 3 sickles for a toothbrush?”

“I don’t think so, no, since it’s nine o’clock in the morning,” the man replies.

Dean barks a laugh that he covers into a cough and Seamus resists the urge to glare at him.

“Good decision,” he says. “Well, you’ve got your pick of the seats,” he adds unnecessary, “I hope you have a pleasant journey with us,” which gets him a grumble. He ignores this and turns to Dean, patting his shoulder. “There we go -- first customer! Take us to Sheffield then, Mr. Thomas.”

“There’re are so many levers on this thing,” Dean whispers, the practice run they did yesterday tumbling out of his head with nerves. “Gimme the book.”

“You do know how to drive this thing, don’t you, son?” the man calls from a seat at the back. “Otherwise I’ll put up with Flooing.”

“We’ll just be a minute!” Seamus assures him, pulling the lever nearest to him that has them rushing off so quickly he has to hold onto Dean for balance. “Cool!”

They deposit him safely in Sheffield after picking up another ten people on the way. “Good job, boys,” he says over his shoulder, “and good luck for the rest of your day.”

“Have a good day, sir!” Seamus calls. “Where next, Dean?”

 

.

 

That night they Apparate home, bone-tired from their first day.

Dean collapses onto the couch, tips his head back and groans. He takes off his shoes and groans again.

Seamus copies him, his body slipping sideways to lean against Dean’s. “I know how you feel, mate.”

“Shay,” Dean says quietly, rolling his neck to meet Seamus’s eye. “I enjoyed today.”

“Me too. Even if my feet are fucking killing me. Remind me to owl me mam for that charm she told us about.” There’s a thousand more things he could say but he runs out of energy, out of steam, and quiets, listening to the sounds of their breathing.

“We make a good team,” he adds after a while because the time feels right for a bit of sentimentality.

  


.

 

Public opinion splits right down the middle. Half of them grew up with Ernie and Stan had been harmless, if a little nosy, a little corruptible, and Seamus gets the hesitation, he does, but wants them to give them a chance because he thinks they might like him and Dean in the end. The other half are in awe of the two boys fresh out of Hogwarts, battle-scarred and war-torn, who have moved on to dedicating their time to making sure people get to their destinations in a timely and efficient manner.

 

.

 

They start in June and so their first few weeks are warm and sunny, full of school kids home from Hogwarts for the holidays. They clamber aboard in their groups, chattering on and on about who's friends with who and how the league is doing. The older kids whisper about boys and girls and blush when Seamus welcomes aboard the topics of their discussions. They fill up the bus with big laughs and the occasional chant as Dean drops them at a Quidditch match, at a festival, at a cafe, and when they leave the bus always feels strangely quiet, save for the grumblings of older men who don’t condone public frivolity.

What happens is this: Seamus and Dean recognise half of these students who are living out their holidays to their fullest potential. In their laughing faces they recognise those twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds who fell into the Room of Requirement in desperation once they had been rescued from the wands of the Carrows. They know enough names to know that some of them have lost family members in the war, that some have lost friends, and Seamus’s heart hurts when he realises that they’ve given these kids their best -- they protected them as well as they could during that year of terror at Hogwarts and then they fought for their peacetime so that they can ride the Knight Bus and have who’s kissing who and who’s winning the league at the top of their minds.

“Those girls screech louder than a banshee,” Mr Blume mutters after a group of them pile off at a concert late one Saturday evening with shouts of thanks to Seamus and Dean.

“They’re happy,” Dean says over his shoulder, cranking the lever that has them hurtling through the Outer Hebrides.

 

.

 

“I’m glad you said that to Mr Blume earlier,” Seamus says as it approaches midnight and the end of their shift. “I’m glad they’re having fun.”

“This is why we did it, isn’t it?” Dean replies. “Why we ran and why we fought and why we’ve got scars -- so they could laugh like a banshee on a bus on the way to a gig.”

“That’s how I see it,” Seamus agrees. “And when they go back to Hogwarts Mr Blume will notice how quiet it is.”

“You’ll just have to start singing then,” Dean says, glancing away from the road and grinning.

“Only if you defend me when he starts complaining.”

Dean slams on the brakes when he looks away for too long and almost hits a lamppost. “If I have to suffer your singing at home I’m not going to prevent anyone else from hearing it.”

Seamus catches his hand in a high-five, holds on for a second, and relishes in the feeling in his stomach that they’re doing well.

 

.

 

Dean redesigns the price posters, tapping them with his wand so they glitter, buses chasing each other round and round, toothbrushes and cups of hot chocolate dancing around the words. He hangs them along the bus, climbing the stairs to level two and then three.

“We’re basically running a hotel here,” he shouts down, knee knocking into a bed as he leans over the staircase.

Seamus cranes his neck to shout his reply. “The amount of stress I’m feeling I can almost see why Stan wanted to lie about his job.”

But the posters go up and they clean the bus every day and they add their own personal touches around the place, from West Ham posters (“All these years and I still don’t see the point when they can’t fly.”) to a leprechaun toy on the dashboard to a picture Dean’s mum took of them a couple of summers ago.

They make it theirs and it works.

They make it a fortnight and then a month and then all of a sudden four months have passed and they’ve made it way past the previous record for Ernie and Stan’s replacements. Mrs Lufkin calls them into her office to congratulate them, saying she’s had a few complaints through from the old-timers who don’t like the modern touches they’ve been adding but apart from that, well done, boys!

 

.

  


“I’ve seen you flirting with all the customers,” and is that jealousy Seamus is hearing? Or maybe wishful thinking?

“Got to get them to cough up for the hot chocolate somehow, don’t I?”

“And they always fall for it,” Dean concedes, smirking. “I’m impressed, Finnigan.”

“Take note, Thomas,” Seamus throws back, going over the top and winking when the next customer comes on, a guy a few years older, and Seamus turns the dial way up.

He shows Dean the receipt for a bed, toothbrush, and hot chocolate after the man has walked along the bus to the stairs, looking over his shoulder twice to catch Seamus’s eye.

“It’s a gift, Dean,” he says, leaning in close.

Dean rolls his eyes. “The driver doesn’t have access to the customers the way you do.”

“Oh, so if you did, you’d be out here charming everyone?”

Dean looks up at him, blinks slowly, and then he smiles, confident, easy, and Seamus’s stomach _flips_. “I think I’d do okay,” he says.

Seamus clears his throat. “Eyes on the road, Casanova.”

 

.

 

It’s true what they say about war making you more open and carefree with your emotions; that’s true because, if you haven’t noticed by now, Seamus is really quite in love with Dean, and, after a year of fearing he was dead and another year getting used to him being very much alive, he’s accepted that within himself -- that’s the open part. The carefree and spontaneous part of all of this is still impossible to grab. For months now Seamus has been edging towards it, holding out both hands, and then sinking back, giving up, and losing it. It’s harder now that they have this partnership, that they live together, that they spend all their free time together, because if Seamus ever takes that final step and says those words out loud, it could shatter everything.

He weighs his friendship with Dean in one hand, whatever extra things he could gamble on in the other, and it’s not a contest he’s willing to play. He closes his hands into fists, lies down on his bed at night, feet away from Dean on the other side of the wall, and he leaves it to his imagination, that act in itself making him feel guilty and dirty when he looks at Dean over their coffee in the morning.

 

.

 

“All anyone’s talking about is the new duo running the Knight Bus,” Parvati says as she climbs aboard, reaching back a hand to help Lavender in. “We thought we better come check it out for ourselves, seeing as we know the wonderful duo.”

“Flattery doesn’t get you mates rates, Pav,” Dean says.

Lavender raises an eyebrow. “No? What about these?” and chucks a pile of Chocolate Frogs and a couple of bottles of Butterbeer. “A breaking in present.”

“Love you, Lav,” Seamus grins, ripping open a Chocolate Frog. He bites the head off and then turns the card over, chokes on the chocolate. “Bloody hell, that was quick.”

“What?”

He flashes them Harry’s face.

Parvati laughs. “To be honest, I’ve always been surprised he’s not had one before this. What’s it say then?”

“The usual. Defeated You-Know-Who, saved a lot of lives, and is currently working with the Aurors.”

“The usual,” Dean snorts. “I heard he was leaving them to play Quidditch professionally.”

“I hadn’t heard that!” Seamus says through a mouthful of frog.

“So, unlike the rumours, you’re not actually joined at the hip,” Lavender checks, taking a seat. “Where are you taking us then?”

“That’s not how the bus works, Lavender,” Seamus points out. “You tell us where you want to go and then --”

And then the horn goes and Dean is driving them at top speed to the west coast of Wales where an elderly couple climbs aboard.

“I’ve always wondered how that works,” Parvati says as a bang goes and they’re back on a road on the outskirts of London. “So does the whole bus Apparate or something?”

“Honestly,” Seamus says, reaching out to grab a handle hanging from the ceiling as they zoom around a corner in what has quickly become a practised move, “I have no idea how any of this works.”

“Keep up the stellar reviews and you’ll be getting Chocolate Frog cards soon,” Parvati says as they get off at the same spot they get on at.

“They didn’t pay, did they?” Seamus checks over the bang that has them careering down a tiny lane in Yorkshire.

Dean shrugs, slams the brakes on outside a house at the end of the lane. “Mates rates,” he says, opening a Butterbeer with a tap of his wand. “Think it’s okay to drink this as I’m driving?”

“It’s our bus now, Dean,” Seamus tells him as a woman and two kids climb on. “We can do what we like -- But don’t spill any on those levers, Merlin knows what’ll happen -- hello, ma’am, how are you? Where are you and the kids off to?”

It’s amazing, really, how easy it has all become second nature.

 

.

 

Seamus prefers working during the day, chatting with the customers, joking with regulars, taking people all across the country on their days out; Dean likes the night shifts when it’s dark and quiet and the only people looking for transport are people too tired on their way home from work, people a little too drunk from a big night out, people who just want to spend a few hours spinning around the roads, taking comfort in the people around them doing the same. 

The night shifts are long and mainly quiet, leaving Seamus to sit up the front with Dean and talk and talk without interruption. The hours between two and five bring out something in everyone --

Seamus begins to see the bright side of the night shift.

 

.

 

“I appreciate the business, but don’t you two ever eat at home?” Hannah asks as she directs their plates onto the table with her wand.

“It’s exhausting being in demand, Hannah,” Dean says, shoving a handful of chips into his mouth. “We don’t have time to cook and your chips are amazing.”

“He’s right, Hannah,” Seamus says. “About both things.”

Hannah laughs. “Well you’ve certainly managed to hold on longer than anyone else yet.”

“Not to brag,” Seamus says, before doing exactly that, “but the popularity of the Knight Bus has _soared_ in the last six months.”

“ _Soared_ ,” Dean repeats. “Mrs Lufkin sent us an Owl with a bunch of reviews earlier -- some people have never experienced smoother driving.”

“Some people have never been in a bus before,” Seamus points out, but he grins, so pleased with both of them. “And they’ve also never had better customer service.”

“What about the one that said you spoke too much?”

“He was deaf,” Seamus says assuredly.

Hannah collects their empty glasses. “I’ll leave you to it.”

She comes back again and again with the drinks they order in increasingly louder voices.

“We’re celebrating our good reviews, Han,” Seamus explains, arm waving wildly.

“And our first night off in weeks,” Dean adds. He rocks his chair back onto all four legs and gazes at Seamus for a beat before he beams. “Thanks, Shay, for dragging me into this.”

“As if I could have done it without you,” Seamus replies, head ducked low near Dean’s, their mutual praise for each other private, a partnership borne from first day of school nerves and wicked sense of humours.

 

.

 

They stumble home, too drunk to Apparate (“Where’s The Knight Bus when I need it?” Seamus mumbles into Dean’s shoulder, hand slipping from its hold around Dean’s waist.), where they continue to stumble and fall onto the couch.

“You’re drunk,” Dean says, breath boozy and hypocritical.

“You’re pretty,” Seamus says, because they’re stating the obvious. He chews at his bottom lip, shifts his body so he’s lying along Dean’s side, his arm around his waist. There’s been a few moments in their friendship where Seamus has considered kissing Dean, you know, just to see what it was like kissing your best friend and anything on top of that came later, later when Dean was talking about Parvati or dating Ginny or disappearing off into the countryside and leaving Seamus sick to his stomach with worry about losing the best person in his life. So yeah, it’s come up a lot, actually, now that he thinks about it, and now his lip is bleeding and the blood is tangy on his tongue, his stomach floppy with the alcohol and the belly laughs cause by Dean, and Merlin, is Dean staring at his mouth? That’s a sign, right?

He raises his head, isn’t drunk enough not to pause and check that this is okay, and when Dean doesn’t shake his head, he carries on, his heart hammering as his lips brush Dean’s.

So it happens and the world doesn’t fall apart and fireworks don’t explode but Seamus’s heart is beat beat beating and all he can smell and feel and taste is Dean -- Dean’s tongue tentatively reaches into Seamus’s mouth because Seamus was right, he’s a confident boy with his kissing, just like he always imagined, and fuck -- he forgot he was bleeding --

He wrenches his head back, gasps, and suddenly he doesn’t feel quite so drunk anymore. “That was very nice,” he says, head clear and oh, will his heart ever slow down again? You’ve kissed Dean, he wants to tell it, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to punch you, so maybe calm down a bit, okay?

Dean blinks, touches a finger to his lips, and then he smiles. “Yeah, Shay, that was nice.”

“‘M really tired,” Seamus murmurs, because apparently the climax of a few years of sort-of-yearning is exhausting. “Could I do that one more time? For celebrations sake?”

There’s something in the way Dean is smiling when he ducks his head and kisses Seamus, his hand curved at Seamus’s cheek. He kisses him slowly, carefully, and Seamus swoons, hand holding onto the hem of Dean’s sleeve because he feels if he lets go he might melt away. Merlin, he’s poetic when he’s tipsy and kissing his best friend.

Dean kisses him and Seamus realises a beat too late that he should be bottling this memory and storing it in a Pensieve for generations to come. They’ll study this feeling, he thinks, giddy, mouth swollen and heart happy. They’ll study this culmination of emotions and they won’t ever find a word for it.

Seamus sighs into the kiss, wriggles an inch closer, and then, when he’s about to slide his hand up Dean’s t-shirt, to touch the skin that has always been so out of reach, Dean pulls back, smiles again, a small smile that Seamus likes to label just for him, and then he says, “Good night, Shay,” and Seamus lets go.

 

.

 

They’re working the night shift the following night so they spend their morning slumped under the covers in their beds, nursing their hangovers because Dean forgot to pick up hangover potion last time he was in Diagon Alley, and Seamus lies there with his eyes closed and struggles to work out if last night was a dream or not.

He crawls out of bed at three, falls into the shower, and emerges feeling better about everything in his life. Okay, so it was a kiss. It was a good kiss, a great kiss, and if that kiss is all there’s going to be then okay, Seamus is grabbing it with one hand, the other holding onto a handrail on the Knight Bus, because he’s shared half of his life with Dean and he’s sharing a job with him, a job that has been so good for them, one they work brilliantly at together, and so he’s not going to turn away with a bruised heart.

He’s going to get dressed, make tea, and offer it to Dean and expect nothing in return. He’s been drunk before and he wouldn’t want to rest any huge decisions or actions he made on his mind under the influence so he’s not going to demand what happened or why it did or why Dean kissed him so gently and smiled at him so softly.

He opens his bedroom door, t-shirt covering his face, and walks right into Dean, because of course, and now he has tea down his stomach.

Seamus pulls his t-shirt back off his head, catches the grin on Dean’s face.

“I made you tea,” Dean says, offers the half-empty cup out and then grabs his wand, “Scourgify -- there, clean.”

“Thanks, mate,” Seamus replies, shoving at Dean’s shoulder on his way down the hall into the kitchen. “You feel like a fry-up?”

Dean places a hand over his heart, closes his eyes, “You’re my hero, Seamus Finnigan,” and Seamus rolls his eyes, pulls the food out of the fridge, and okay, so that’s the line drawn under last night.

 

.

 

“The Muggles have a phrase,” Dean says, when it’s sunrise and they’ve dropped off the last passenger outside a farm in York. He says this and then he pulls the lever that makes them jump a few hundred miles back down to London, always fully concentrated for that, and Seamus shifts from foot to foot, hand secure on the back of Dean’s chair, and waits. “A drunk mind speaks a sober heart.”

“After the walk home I wasn’t that drunk,” Seamus says, because if they’re talking about it he’s going to be honest and he’s not going to hide behind alcohol. He talks off the ticket-holder and sits on the arm of Dean’s chair, wishes the bus was laid out better for conversations such as this.

“Me neither,” Dean replies, takes his eyes off the road for a second to meet Seamus’s eyes. “I kissed you because you kissed me and because I wanted to. I used the alcohol to make myself a little braver but once you kissed me I realised that was stupid and I didn’t need anything like that. It’s you, Shay.”

“It’s you,” Seamus agrees, because he’ll agree to anything in this moment because Dean just said he wanted to kiss him and oh, if fifteen year old confused and slightly guilty Seamus heard that. “I didn’t want to mess anything up by kissing you,” he says. “I’ve wanted to for so long now it’s something I’m used to and now we’re doing this together --” he gestures to the road in front of him, noting the turns Dean’s making to make the journey longer, to give them more time. “-- but last night, I didn’t want to hold back anymore.”

He opens his mouth to continue, to say everything he decided yesterday, that their friendship is worth more than the whole world, no matter how nice it felt to kiss Dean, but instead the bus lurches to a halt and Dean is standing up, standing in front of Seamus.

“You’re the most important person in my life, Seamus,” he murmurs and Merlin, he’s so tall, Seamus adjusts himself on the arm of the chair so they’re slightly more level. “And I know this all seems like it’s coming out of nowhere but I want to try this with you, I want to try living out the things I’ve been wanting for months, because I know that if it doesn’t work out, our friendship will be strong enough to support it.”

“I knew you could be sappy,” Seamus laughs, and then he leans up, pulls Dean down by the shoulders and kisses him.

 

.

 

So they try it.

Things mainly stay the same as they have for the last nine years apart from kissing that wasn’t an option before and sleeping in the same bed and learning each others bodies in a way they weren’t privy to before. They play off each other while they’re working as well as they always did, stepping around each other, always knowing where the other is.

They kiss until the kisses turn lazy, lips sliding together, mouths never losing contact as though they’re making up for lost time. Seamus runs his hands over Dean’s body, skates over areas he’s edged towards for years, kisses the scars that tell the tale of their year apart, takes his time learning the different ways to have Dean falling apart in his hands, his mouth forming Seamus’s name, sending him giddily up the bed to kiss it from his tongue.

He keeps talking talking talking, the way he’s always done, about how Dean makes him feel, about where they should go for their date, about what the customers might say about their relationship, because Seamus has always told Dean everything so why should it stop now when most of his thoughts are centred around him, and Dean listens to every word.

When they climb into bed at nine in the morning after a long shift, they fit together the way they always have done. These are the things that are new: Dean kissing Seamus’s forehead before they go to sleep, Seamus throwing a leg over Dean’s waist, and, later when they wake up in the afternoon, well, the sex is new.

But the sex aside (and Merlin, is the sex good) not a lot changes at all and that’s when they feel this is right.

 

.

 

“Will I jinx it if I say this is going well?” Dean asks, charming a knife to cut up peppers and onions as he turns to the chicken sizzling on the cooker.

“The fajitas?” Seamus scrunches up his nose. “Well you’ve made them a few times before this so I don’t see why it would be a problem.”

“Us, Shay,” he replies, adding the vegetables to the chicken and stirring everything together. “Do the cheese please.”

Seamus picks up the grater and focuses on the growing pile of cheese on the plate. “I think it’s going very well,” he says after a moment before he lifts his head to grin. “In fact, I think it’s going great.”

“Great, huh? That’s a bold claim.”

“I’m pretty confident about how I feel.”

Dean steps away from the cooker and curls his arms around Seamus’s waist. “And how’s that?”

Seamus puts on a sigh, squeezes Dean’s arm. “I really fancy you, mate.”

“I fancy you too.”

“And we’re good at kissing, right?”

“And all the other stuff.”

Seamus kisses Dean. “So it’s going great.”

Dean slides his hands down to Seamus thighs to lift him up onto the worktop. He kisses him hard, his hands at Seamus’s neck, thumb soft on Seamus’s cheek, and when he pulls away he rests his forehead on Seamus', stays until the chicken starts to burn. “It’s going great,” he agrees, and look at that smile, Seamus is in love with that smile.

  


.

  


The Knight Bus does well under these two new charming boys. Of course they’re no Ernie and Stan but times change, this is a country rebuilding itself, moving into the twenty-first century, and the public embrace Dean and Seamus, those two boys with the world on their shoulders, the bus in their hands, and each other in their hearts (excuse the soppy language, that’s Mrs Brocklehurst getting carried away with her article for The Daily Prophet after Dean and Seamus go public with the extra level of their partnership).

"It's like I said," Seamus says over his shoulder as he counts the change for a couple on their way to Glasgow and watches them unsteadily make their way towards a seat at the back. "We make a good team, Dean." 

"As if we didn't know that," Dean replies, a little too cocky when he pulls the lever at the last second to squeeze between two buses. When everything's straightened out again, he reaches blindly behind him for Seamus's hand, pulls him alongside his chair. "We've always been the best team." 

"I'm just glad Wizarding Britain has finally caught on," Seamus agrees, smudging a kiss onto Dean's cheek before he's called away to help a customer who's changed his mind about the toothbrush. It's exhausting being this good at his job.  

 

 

 

 


End file.
